Efi’s “What Does It Matter” #1

Here’s your unique version of the What Does It Matter story. Efi’s braved this adventure alongside Arin, and created it with the choices they made. The end is nigh – May. 4th, 2025 which is just one of 11 possible endings.

This story was created with the Wondrous Tales 3 year anniversary interactive special .

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Heirlooms

It was a morning like every other. The singing of birds awoke her from her slumber. Her glance wandered along the ceiling, illuminated by the light that the curtains failed to block out. A black spider, the size of her fist, sat in the corner of her room. It noticed her waking up and seemingly bowed to her as if a servant greeting their master. She took a deep breath and yawned wide, while stretching in her bed.

“Good morning to you too, Serela.”

The spider wiggled slightly and a phrase appeared on its web, “Good morning, master.”

As soon as her feet touched the floor, she heard a voice call out to her, “Wash up and get down, breakfast is ready.”

“Yes mom,” she mumbled sleepily, knowing her mother had heard her.

Cold water splashed on her face. She brushed the back of her hand against the mirror, as if brushing a lover’s cheek. The mirror instantly defogged, revealing her still sleepy, but freshened up face.

“What do I want to be today…” she mumbled, parting her lips and speaking out a chant. Without making a sound, her face morphed. She was now a he, a handsome lad who grinned ever playfully into the mirror.

“Or maybe…” she murmured, continuing to morph her appearance into a beautiful person whose gender was neutral. Then she was an old hag who grinned evilly into the mirror, next a gorgeous redhead who smiled innocently. She felt quite…, Feminine today.

Arin headed downstairs where her mother was already serving breakfast.

“Morning – Mom, Dad,” she spoke cheerfully, sitting down at the dining table. Her father peeked from behind the newspapers, scanning her up and down.

“Morning darling, you look as gorgeous as ever,” he replied.

“Thanks Dad!”

As her mother served them breakfast, her eyes darted momentarily to the empty fourth chair at the table, and then the four wooden mugs that lined the windowsill; she pondered yet again about these.

“Mom?” she called out softly.

“Yes?”

“Do you ever feel like something is off? As if something crucial was missing, not lining up?”

Her mother tilted her head to the side with a finger at her lips, pondering.

“Hmmm, occasionally,” she got up from the chair and walked back to the kitchen to turn the stove off, “but isn’t that just life? Always a little imperfect? Or… are you perhaps in love and missing somebody’s company?”

“Yes, that!”

Arin jumped up from her chair and then paused, “No, wait…”

“No! I’m not in love! But yes, that, that’s exactly it… I feel like, I’m missing somebody, I don’t know how to explain this,” she murmured, sitting back down.

“Oh darling,” her mother finished in the kitchen and made haste back for the table, sitting beside her daughter.

“Hun, any words of wisdom?” her mother probed her husband whose attention was glued to a newspaper.

He lowered the newspaper and glanced at his wife, then at his daughter.

“When something feels off or out of place, that usually comes from stress and anxiety,” he pondered for a moment.

“The mugs, nonsense. It is as your mother said, one is your grandmother’s, others are for us. The chair – a simple custom. No need to overthink something simple. Though,” he proceeded to fold the newspaper and put it on the table, reaching for his daughter’s hand and taking it into his. As he caressed her hand he smiled.

“The graduation exams are no joke, and so your concerns are valid, don’t let my words sway you or make you feel that your concerns aren’t valid. The sense of something missing is your confidence, you’re missing your confidence.”

He grinned and nodded at her, “Chin up, tiger! You’re the best and that exam is nothing but a small pebble in your path.”

She took a moment to take his words in, then grabbed the cup of water and chugged it, nodding confidently, “I think you’re right! And yes, I got this!”

Arin felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, squeezing ever so gently.

“Now then, about the exam. The basics are all you need to achieve greatness and become a powerful witch. Remember them well.”

“Harmony, brewery, and arcana,” she replied smugly.

“You’re as ready as you will ever be my dear. Now… as per tradition in our family,” her mother spoke softly and gestured with her hands.

On the table appeared a very plain, and crudely carved wooden box. It had a handful of runes burned into it, Arin recognized them to be protective runes. Her mother opened it and turned it toward Arin. It held various items within it, but the few that caught her eyes were; the earrings with beautiful amethysts, a silver bracelet with a large emerald as the centerpiece, and a ring with a small but pristine and perfect ruby embedded into it.

“Our family’s heirlooms, each witch in our family takes one to the exam with them, for, let’s call it – good luck,” her mother winked, glancing over at them.

“Is… this allowed?”

“Sure is, well, still best not to speak of it, but they won’t care about an extra trinket, I assure you.”

“Okay…” she hesitated, glancing over the items again.

“What about these earrings?”

“Oh…” her mother seemingly drifted into her memories for a while, then proceeded with a smile.

“These earrings were crafted for your great-grandmother to help her replenish mana easier and focus it better. She was a spectacular witch who had single-handedly sustained a protective barrier for four days during an assault of horrors until the army showed up to relieve her. These earrings are made with the finest amethysts collected from a crystal-eyed Basilisk.”

“She did that?”

Arin commented with a gasp.

“Oh she did… She was incredible, as mighty as they get, but far from the mightiest in our family tree,” her mother chuckled.

“What’s this ring?”

“A beautiful ring, isn’t it?” her mother grinned.

“I made this ring myself, back in the days when I was a scholar; pursuing the secrets of the ancient magical traps inside dungeons and tombs. At its core is a ruby I discovered in a dungeon. The ring helps the wearer discover that – which is hidden.”

“Sounds handy.”

“It saved my life many times.”

“What does the bracelet do?”

“My mother’s bracelet. Your grandmother, a battle-crazed witch she was… She’d charge head-first into any kind of dangerous situation and accept every duel and challenge. Seriously, she was a crazy witch, and this bracelet inherited her battle craze, in a sense. This bracelet is essentially an amplifier, enhancing and empowering the witch’s spells, quite formidable I dare say, just as your grandmother was.”

“I’ve made my choice!”

“Excellent. Well then, which shall it be?” her mother queried.

“I’ll go with…”

“The Bracelet of Power!”

The door shut quietly behind her. As she peered over her shoulder, the face made of bark peered back at her and then its lips curled up into a gentle smile.

“Good day to you, and remember – be careful,” it groaned.

“You as well,” Arin chuckled and headed down the street. Her mind raced between possibilities as to where to visit prior to the academy.

The bell above the magic shop’s door jingled softly as Arin stepped inside. The familiar scent of herbs mingled with the faint aftertaste of magical residue. The shop’s shelves overflowed with oddities: glowing vials, enchanted trinkets, remnants of various creatures, and ancient tomes.

Behind the counter was a hunched-over old man, master Theox. He squinted at her, his beady eyes gleaming beneath his bushy white brows. He was only half Arin’s height, especially when hunched over, a self-proclaimed ‘not a dwarf’, but nobody buys that.

“Ah, Arin! Come to browse or buy?” he groaned, his voice dry and sharp, like creaking wood.

“Just browsing,” she replied, “got time to kill before the academy,” her gaze wandering over the cluttered shelves.

As she walked through the shop, a faint hum drew her attention to a small orb resting on a pedestal. The orb pulsed faintly, its light shifting like a heartbeat.

“That’s a Spellcatcher,” the old man explained, appearing suddenly at her side.

“It absorbs stray mana from the air. Handy if you’re low on reserves, but it’s not cheap.”

“Figures,” Arin muttered, struggling to tear her gaze away.

She eventually settled on a few small charms – nothing extravagant, but useful enough.

As she handed over her payment, Theox smiled slyly, “Good luck at the academy today,” he said, his tone oddly knowing.

“Thanks,” Arin replied, the back of her neck prickling as she left the shop.

Expected And Unexpected

There were many blissful moments in life. Among them was the morning stroll to the academy. The crisp morning air was refreshing and energizing, overflowing with nature’s energy after a night’s rest. Arin could feel the charged air brush against her skin.

She waved her hand in front of herself, forming a few droplets of dew in the air.

They were no ordinary droplets however, they sparkled ever so slightly, filled to the brim with fresh energy. Contrary to many people’s beliefs, the mornings are energizing, literally at that. As more living creatures awake and go about their day, they consume that energy. By dusk the witches struggle to gather any energy from the air around them and rely solely on their own energy reserves, that is what many call the mana pool.

Arin beckoned the drops closer with a wave of her finger and opened her mouth. The cool drops burst into a refreshing mist in her mouth as soon as they touched her tongue. A shudder coursed through her body as the energy spread through it. This was, in essence, a mana potion, the core ingredient of it anyhow.

The academy was much the same, except it wasn’t. As one might suspect, a magical academy for aspiring witches, alchemists, mages, and wizards wouldn’t be boring. Every day was something new, very new in fact. Today the entrance was a solid wall.

Arin poked at the wall, it was indeed a solid wall. To her surprise, there were no other students in sight to see how they got through this obstacle.

‘Must be another pop quiz,’ she thought to herself. Tracing the edge of one of the stones that made the wall, she felt upset over the fact that she slept through the lecture when they learned the ‘pass-through’ spell.

A deep breath in, hold it, and then slowly exhale. As if following actions guided by an unheard voice, she did just that. Her fingers traced the coarse rocks, examining the wall structure.

After a closer examination, it was obvious to her that the wall was not an illusion, but real. However, it was also pretty obvious that it was constructed by magic. It was known that magically constructed items were more resilient to physical damage due to the mana used to hold the object together or to animate it in some cases. She placed her hand on what vaguely resembled a crack, a fault line in the rocks, where gaps between them were larger than all others. Closing her eyes and feeling the palm of her hand warming up slightly as mana flowed through it and into the rocky wall.

The wall shuddered momentarily as the magic holding it together flickered and unraveled. The stones tumbled free, crumbling into an avalanche of gravel that clattered to the ground. This revealed the entrance to the foyer that was oddly empty, but that was hardly a reason not to rush to the lecture.

As she stepped over the pile of rubble onto the academy’s tile floor, the academy came to life. As if a veil was lifted, summoning her from a dream to reality, or rather from a sub-space to the real world. She glanced over her shoulder at the entrance that was as ordinary as ever, just a few steps behind her another student stumbled through something and glanced around confused.

‘So it was a random pop quiz,’ she concluded at last. Spinning on her heel she heard a familiar voice.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Arin. How delightful that you got through the pop quiz with such ease.”

She glanced over her shoulder to see who spoke to her; tilting her head to the side, Arin found herself stumped by the stranger before her.

“And you are…?” she began.

“Oh, right, how’s the new face? Does it suit me?” a gorgeous, blonde-haired girl responded.

“Kira, stop with the new faces every other day, I can only remember so many…”

“Yeah yeah, says you… I mean, look at you! Gorgeous as ever, you should use this appearance more often,” Kira replied with a wide grin. Her perfect, blonde hair glistened in the moonlight that beamed through the dust-speckled roof window of the foyer. One might wonder – why is there moonlight beaming through the window in the morning? But in a magical academy, there are stranger things than that.

“I’ll think about it,” she responded, turning and heading up the stairs.

“So, how did you overcome the pop quiz today?”

“Mmmh… it was an, uh… a fairly simple task, I don’t imagine a lot would fail,” Arin hesitated, recalling the struggles of getting through that simple obstacle.

“Oh, you’d be surprised…”

Kira replied slyly, her eyes hinting that she knew something Arin didn’t.

A Student’s Duty

Upon entering the classroom, Arin threw a glance around, to her surprise there were only about a third of the students present. Their professor was already at his desk, reading a book. They assumed their seats, waiting for the lecture to start.

“Did others really fail that task?”

Kira glanced over and shrugged, “That or they used it as an excuse to skip. I’d wager on the latter.”

After a hearty chuckle, they in silence unpacked their supplies in preparation for the lecture. A book in Kira’s bag caught Arin’s attention.

“Oh? What’s that?”

Arin queried curiously.

“Mmh?”

Kira glanced at Arin and followed her gaze to the book, “Ah, this?” she pulled a curiously titled book out ‘A Disaster In The Waiting.’.

“Interesting title. Is it fiction or non-fiction?”

Kira pondered, “Historical fiction I’d say. Mostly made-up stories from tell-tales of the golden times. Whatever was passed around by word of mouth, loosely based on the historical records that survived.”

“How amusing,” Arin replied, curious to learn more and to read the book. The divine decree of witches only being allowed a single child never seemed fair. Having studied history at the academy she knew of the Golden Magical Era – a time in history when magical power was abundant.

“Mind if I borrow it? Seems – intriguing,” Arin asked, her voice carrying a note of curiosity that she couldn’t mask.

Kira tilted her head, a smirk creeping onto her face.

“You? Into fiction? Now that’s a twist I didn’t see coming.”

“Well, you did make it sound intriguing,” she countered, fingers already inching toward the book.

“And I do enjoy learning about the Golden Magical Era.”

“Fair enough.”

Kira chuckled, sliding the book across the table with a lazy flick of the hand.

“Take your time. Just don’t ruin the ending for me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied with a sly grin, eager to flip it open.

Arin grasped the book and slipped it into her bag, patting the bag as she closed it, as if patting a well-behaved dog.

Kira smirked, “Really didn’t expect you to be interested in historical fiction, color me surprised.”

“Ah, I’m full of those,” Arin gave her a playful wink.

“Glad to see you’re interested in taking at least occasional breaks. I had feared that I’d have to plan an intervention to save you from overachieving with your academic success, ugh, sounds utmost bo-ring!”

Arin chuckled softly, “Oh, Kira! My hero! You’d shift to have lush blonde hair and long eyelashes? Come to my rescue at the library, riding your noble steed surely? I’d be swooned.”

Kira glanced at her for a moment and then turned away. Arin glanced over; Kira’s body shivered for a moment as it morphed into something different. Kira’s hair turned white and her voice became deeper. When he turned back around, Arin gasped. Before her now sat a handsome, perfectly chisel-faced man.

“Like this!?”

“Ah, my hero,” Arin mocked, “Ugly…”

“Oh come on!”

Kira sighed, shifting her appearance back to the more familiar, female one.

“Ahem… Witch Arin?” she heard a voice calling out to her. Snapping back to reality, she glanced around for the source of the voice, and then realized that all eyes were on her. A soft gasp escaped her lips, and she bowed her head understandingly.

“It would seem to me that you wish to volunteer for the upcoming exercise?”

“Yes, Professor Romal,” she replied quietly.

“Very good,” the professor commended before pointing at the lecture board with his cane, “The graduation exams are coming up, and it is our duty, as the faculty, to prepare you all. As such, the following lectures in all of your classes will focus on your final preparations and training exercises prior to the exam.”

Arin glanced at the board, noting the basic highlights of the three core principles of witchcraft: ‘harmony, brewery, and arcana’. Each heading marked the start of a distinct column, their spaces yet to be filled.

She sighed quietly and reached for her book to stash it away in her bag, but as her fingers brushed against the cover, an odd sensation surged through her – a tingle, like static electricity propagated from her fingertips all the way through the body.

The once simple cover seemingly folded in on itself, warped and twisted, and then reshaped itself to a point of changing not just its shape and looks. Even the material it was made of seemed a lot thicker, and sturdier. The letters mixed into a swirling mess, like dyes in the water. The chaotic spiral unwinded itself and took upon a new shape, forming intricate and ancient symbols upon the cover of the grimoire. The cover shone ever so slightly, a shifting array of iridescent hues like the inside of a shell, but some of the colors were unlike anything that Arin had ever seen before, they were a color that in her mind she perceived as ‘ancient magic’.

Arin heard a calling as if a voiceless voice whispering for her to open the book, it was almost irresistible. She cautiously flipped it open, so as not to attract attention to herself. A slightly yellowed, from old age, page presented itself to her. Being blank and bare, like a field of pure, undisturbed snow; awaiting something to paint its canvas. A moment later, as if a freshly spilled vial of ink, a puddle formed at the center of its page. It spun lazily, like a slowly waking beast that was still groggy.

The ink spread itself out and shaped into a handful of simple words.

“Greetings, how may I be of service?”

Arin furrowed her eyebrows at the text that just formulated itself on the previously empty page. Then heard her professor clearing his throat, in an obvious attempt to gain her attention again. ‘No time,’ she thought to herself, closing the book and stashing it away in her bag.

As she returned her attention to the board after stashing the book away, she realized that the columns had already been filled out with various words. Each describing the core principles of witchcraft.

“And now, Witch Arin, are you ready to begin?”

“Already? Uhm, yes, professor.”

The professor smiled, and gestured to his chair, “Then please, take a seat.”

She walked down the stairs with the grace of a newborn giraffe, trying desperately not to stumble or fall over so as not to attract any more attention to herself. She slid behind the professor’s desk and sat down in his chair.

It creaked in protest, but there was little it could do to resist. As she sank into the cushion of the chair she felt unease wash over her. It was as if the chair was going to swallow her whole, like a vicious mimic.

“What shall I do?”

“Only relax,” he whispered slyly, “Now then, class. I will put Witch Arin to slumber, a basic spell many of you are already familiar with, however, there’s a catch to it. I will use a more advanced version of it, that allows me to send her, and the rest of you shortly, to a specific dream world that the faculty crafted in preparation for the exam. Rest assured, death in the dream does not imply death in reality, you’ll simply awaken should anything go wrong.”

There was a slight commotion after his words, followed by murmurs as students began to whisper to one another.

“Excuse me, professor, did you say – death?” she queried him anxiously.

“That’s right my dear. The graduation exam is a hands-on exercise, it is quite dangerous, so to prepare you all, the faculty has developed a safe means of hands-on training, lucid dreaming,” he replied smugly.

“Not to brag but it was, in fact, my idea.”

The class reluctantly applauded. The professor tossed his cane up, and it froze mid-air, as he bowed like a showman at a circus, “Thank you, thank you! Now, Witch Arin will be the first one to experience it. Oh, but not to worry young miss, the dream world is rather safe, at least in the initial zone. Faculty had tested it all thoroughly. Important to note though – the time ratio between reality and dream is roughly one hundred to one. So for every one hundred minutes there, merely a minute passes here. This means that you’ll spend well over five hours in there before you awaken back here in this chair, in absolute safety. Are you ready?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. Magic flowed through her like a coiling serpent, ready to strike but not yet unleashed. After a moment she reopened her eyes and gave the professor a firm nod, radiating with confidence.

The professor leaned back, clearly impressed.

“Calm, confident, and composed. Witch Arin, you might just make it through with excellence,” he commended her.

Dreams Beyond

The professor took a few limping steps toward her, for a moment Arin thought he resembled a waddling penguin and had to resist a laugh. He was leaning heavily on his cane with every step.

As he got close, he placed his hand on Arin’s head and murmured a cantation of swords, which Arin hadn’t ever heard before. Just as he finished, she felt a surge of his magic, like a tsunami, wash through her body, and with it, her consciousness faded.

She was not sure what to expect of the dream world, but one thing she was certain of – it was darker than she had anticipated. The stale dusty air made her uncertain if she ended up in a dungeon or a cave.

Arin raised her hand and flicked her fingers with an exaggerated motion, as if she was trying to summon a flame on a whim, which she was. The air hummed with a slight charge of magic, and then, with the most unenthusiastic flicker, a little orb of flame appeared, hovering just beside her.

It floated there, bobbing lightly as if an impatient person waiting for a delayed bus.

“Well, you’re a real ray of sunshine,.

“ Arin muttered sarcastically, watching the flame blink lazily as it provided just enough light to reveal the environment around it. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and it looked relatively cute.

The flame didn’t seem concerned with anything other than existing in its little bubble of light, like a tiny, obedient elemental that only cared about its task. It provides a sliver of warmth and illumination, even if its enthusiasm resembles that of a bored goldfish.

The hallway was rather unremarkable. There were exactly two doors, one at each end. The door to her right seemed fancier. It had ornaments upon it that seemed rather old school. Now that she had a closer look, the entire hallway had an antiqued look to it, it seemed rather ancient if anything.

Old rugs – once fashionable, perhaps 200 to 300 years ago, lined the floors. Upon the walls with peeling wallpaper, in silence hung paintings, covered in a thick crust of dust, like ancient armor guarding them.

The door to the left seemed rather bland. It was a very basic wooden door with nothing of interest to it.

It seemed odd that there would be just two doors in a place like this.

Arin squinted at the nearest painting, leaning closer to it. As she brushed it with her sleeve, a plume of dust erupted off it, as if offended by her presence. It enveloped her like an angry air elemental that had decided to act like a desert storm.

When the storm settled at last, she frowned. The painting before her was of a very plain, non-interesting frog that sat upon the edge of a leaf – as if contemplating taking a leap of faith to its likely demise.

She pondered for a moment, wondering what kinds of hardships might push a frog to the edge like that. Then decided there wasn’t much else to see in the painting, and glanced down at the placard below it.

Words etched into copper read ‘dreams of beyond.’ She chucked, “Dreams of what? The end?”

Her gaze traveled onwards, like that of a traveler on the top of a mountain, gazing at a horizon, though her horizon was much closer – it was the next painting over.

This one was a little less dusty, and she dared not anger the dust spirits again, so she tried to perceive it through the blanket of dust that decorated it like snow.

It was a painting of a man whose mustache seemed more alive than he did. In fact, the mustache appeared so alive that it twisted and straightened itself out, like a sleepy sloth stretching itself out to the frame. After a moment, like an over-stretched spring, it recoiled back into its previous curled-up shape.

Arin headed for the decorated, fancy door. Each step she took was light and steady. To her surprise, the floorboards did not so much as make a sound, despite the place looking fairly run down and unattended. She approached the old door, decorated with beautiful ornaments and engravings.

Before reaching for the doorknob her threw a glance at a single painting that hung on the opposite wall from all the others, it was a rather small portrait with a name placard below it. Beyond a thick layer of old dust, was a painting of an older man, leaning on a cane.

He looked vaguely familiar, to Arin. Below the portrait hung a name placard, ‘Maglamor Helin.’.

She reached for the painting, then paused, hesitant to wipe the dust off to get a better look.

She pressed her finger gently against the canvas of the portrait, gliding it around in a spiraling motion, while speaking a chant under her breath. The painting seemingly shuddered, as if contemplating its life choices. The man in the portrait changed his attire a couple of times, and then returned to his original outfit.

The placard thought for a long moment about whether it had anything to reveal; after deciding that it did not it remained the same.

Arin let out a soft sigh, a grandiose waste of mana, trying to unveil a secret of an object that had no secrets. A spell that’d be better used on a wall, at least walls, usually, had some secrets to hide.

Arin reached for the doorknob and grasped it, hesitating for but a moment before turning it. It turned with ease; the door was unlocked and waiting to be opened.

It opened silently, eerily so. There were no creaks or squeaks of protest, the hinges were well-oiled and functioned as they should.

The room beyond the door was dark, the only source of light being the light of a little flickering flame that floated around. It was a vast room, a bedroom, and a laboratory by the looks of it. Arin peeked into the room before stepping over the threshold. The room was quiet, nothing and no one seemed to be within it.

She exhaled a sigh of relief and As soon as she did, she heard a voice, like a distant echo in her mind, a forgotten memory perhaps. The voice seemed to be reading a story – barely audible, muffled by long distance and seemingly time, it was hard to tell if this was an illusion, a memory, or perhaps a telepathic communication.

Arin closed her eyes after taking a few steps into the room. Her mind chased after the voice like a fox chasing a rabbit. It was elusive, every time she thought she focused on it, the voice slipped away. Managing to catch only fragmented parts of what it was saying each time.

‘Long ago, a brave rabbit by the name of Oliver…’

She chased the voice again, a distant source, an unseen echo in the deepest corners of her mind. It would wait just long enough to be caught and focused upon before dissipating once more into an incomprehensible jumbled noise.

‘…kicked him in the face with enough force to…’

Arin’s memory stirred. She recognized these story fragments, they were from a storybook of Wondrous Tales that she enjoyed so much as a kid.

The voice was gone now, as if never there. She reopened her eyes, carefully looking around. There was no one.

As she walked into the room, more oddities came to light. Not far from the door, at the apparent center of the room was a magical circle carved out on the wooden floor. Its edge was lined in runes that Arin couldn’t quite figure out. She thought she had seen similar runes in the past, perhaps in the history books during lectures. They were runes from old magic, the magic from the times of god-like sorcerers and the abundance of magic in the world.

She trod carefully around it so as not to step into the circle by accident. Magical circles can have the most unexpected activation requirements. It would be foolish to probe it by stepping into it, especially when one can not decipher the runic spell that is placed upon the circle.

There was an abundance of curious items in the room that were worth examining.

The desk stood in the corner, near the ingredients shelf. As she approached it, she once more noted that the old floorboards hardly made a sound. Throwing a quick glance around the desk, she noticed a few things of interest.

Among the expected clutter on a work desk – lay a diary. Perhaps it was written in just recently, as it had no dust upon its aged and cracked cover, its corners old and frayed. The clasp on the diary was undone, as if beckoning Arin to peek inside.

A quill was resting beside the diary, on its stand; waiting to be picked up and wielded like the weapon it was meant to be – a pen is stronger than the sword, they say.

She paused for a moment, her fingers lingering on the edge of the dusty desk. A faint murmur tickled her mind once more. The same soft and familiar voice she had heard before, as if carried by distant ripples over immeasurable distance, balancing on the edge between the heard and unheard.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she pursued the voice, focusing on it.

‘… You’re mister Dark-feather? A pigeon… – is that correct?..’

The words blurred as her focus wavered while she tried to remember what tale this was a part of while the voice was slipping away.

Arin clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Her body relaxed and the tension left her. This sets her mind into a calm state, allowing her to focus on the voice again.

It came to be once more at the edge of her mind. A faint echo she could barely make out the words of.

“Ace glanced at him from the top of the captain’s chair and nodded.

“I’m Roger, sir.”

Ace grinned.

“No sir, just Roger.”

“The Golden Eyelashes, sir,” Roger reminded…”

There was a faint laugh, Arin couldn’t tell if it was hers or the voice’s, but the scene she heard made her lips curl up regardless. The scene was vivid, she remembered it in full detail. Ace – the charismatic otter mailman who made it through everything with charisma and a ‘can do’ attitude.

Memories began to flood her mind. They push the voice further into nothingness, memories of someone reading this story to her as she lay in bed. She felt her mouth open as if trying to call out a name but no sound escaped her lips.

The dreamlike whispers faded away, leaving Arin standing alone and in silence. She clung to her head, “What is this… Who read it to me? Was it my mother?”

After a long moment of silence and memories she couldn’t recall, she decided to shake it off and resume her investigation of this place. Snapping out of her stupor at last, she glanced over the desk again.

Arin noticed that one of the drawers was pried open just a smidge, enough to pique her curiosity. Before reaching for anything, she took a moment to examine the rest of the table, noticing that atop a stack of tomes and scrolls laid an item covered by dark velvet of the finest quality.

She reached for the velvet fabric, pulling it up to reveal beneath it an amulet that rested atop a folded, aged parchment.

The parchment’s corners were yellowed and brittle. She carefully pulled the parchment from beneath the amulet, unfolding it slowly and cautiously.

It revealed a hand-written note.

‘To Maglamor Helin.

This is our gift to you, magister..

This amulet is your key to successful ascension, yet we advise you wield it with caution, for it binds to the soul of its bearer. Should the amulet perish, so will you.

It will create the link to the realm of magic by absorbing the magic of the sister witches, allowing you to draw upon its endless reserves.

Become our new god.

— R.H’

With a hint of hesitation and a trembling hand, Arin reached for the diary, almost too afraid to know what she might find inside, yet curiosity got the best of her.

She flipped it over to a random page, her eyes scanned the unevenly scrawled text. Her jaw hung open as she read the entry.

‘One of the witch sisters has been captured. As expected – witch sisters are mighty even when split up. This one found my dwelling through, as she said – ‘being attracted to a source of abnormality’, tsk, I thought I hid it well. No matter, she was captured by my strongest sealing spell, the ‘reflectionless reality’, yet even now she fights and resists with all her might despite being dormant and forced to live out her dreams.

Albeit this threw my plans off the rails, step one is done, now I need to capture her sister. I’ve received the amulet, and the sacrifices are ready, as are the rest of the ingredients. Soon, very soon, I will be the new source of magic in this world.’

She gasped, panic flooded her mind. Stumbling backward, her foot got caught on the leg of the chair, throwing her off balance. The wooden floor proved to be as hard as it looked when she fell. Her robes softened the impact a little, but not enough to prevent the bruises she would soon have.

She pushed herself away, further from the desk. Her heart pounded in her chest, and each thump only further devastated her thoughts. Each thump of her heart threw her focus into a chaotic disarray.

She felt dizzy and lightheaded, dread and fear mixed into a single entity that probed at her very core instinct of fight or flight. The mana within her went haywire, occasionally sparking out of her fingers in a disorderly manner.

Her gaze momentarily fell upon a dark mirror in the corner of the room. For a moment, her mind stirred and tore at itself as if ravaged by an ancient beast that had been unleashed.

Her head throbbed; the possibility of discovering something she was not prepared for, and finding secrets that were meant to be sealed for all of eternity in this room.

After a moment to catch her breath, she pondered on what to do next.

Arin carefully slid open the drawer, her fingers brushing against the antique wood before coming to rest on a small, familiar book. At first glance, it looked entirely unremarkable – a worn book from some used books store, its edges slightly frayed, and its cover – unremarkable. Yet, as she focused on it for a moment, the title suddenly became apparently familiar to her – ‘A Disaster In The Waiting’, the book Kira had in class.

Arin flipped through the pages, stopping on the last chapter. Something about it felt wrong. A faint shimmer seemed to rise from the page as her fingers grazed the paper, and for a split second, the letters blurred into an unreadable mess before snapping back into place.

The room seemed to grow colder. Arin felt a pull from deep within the book, as if something ancient was calling to her from the pages. Her hand trembled as she closed it, but not before she noticed the small, inconspicuous symbol etched into the last page – one she didn’t recall seeing in class. It glimmered briefly before fading away.

This book was more than a simple novel. Something had changed, and she had to know why, but now was not the time for that.

The bookshelf stood against the far wall, its wooden frame darkened with age and dust that layered it like a warm blanket. She stepped closer, her fingers brushing over the spines of books stacked neatly. Each shelf was filled edge to edge, with some tomes seemingly laying atop the others due to lack of space on the shelves. The first thing that caught her eye was the title of a thick, leather-bound grimoire on the middle shelf, its cover adorned with gold symbols that shimmered strangely in the light of a little flickering flame that floated around, ‘Blood Magic and Its Consequences’, it read.

The title sent a chill through her body.

Her gaze moved to another volume, one with charred edges, as if it had narrowly escaped being consumed by flames. For just a moment she hesitated, feeling bad for the book. Books are precious, and priceless, so for a tome to experience flames is truly tragic. She pulled it out from the orderly row of tomes that resembled parading soldiers with how neatly and tightly they had been standing, and flipped it open out of curiosity. The tome seemingly had several missing pages, they had been torn out in a rush. The raggedy remains of the torn pages made her heart clench.

“Poor thing,” she whispered, putting the tome back in its place before continuing along the shelf. Most of these tomes appeared to be magical in nature, or contain knowledge of magics that she dared not so much as touch. There was a certain heaviness in the air around the shelf – almost as if the books themselves carried dark, forbidden powers.

Arin carefully moved from shelf to shelf until she noticed a peculiar, ornate mirror nestled between two larger volumes. It didn’t quite seem to belong among the books.

Its frame was decorated with twisted symbols she couldn’t comprehend, but they resembled ancient runes.

A chill ran down Arin’s back, a gut feeling urging her to leave it be. For a moment – memories of her class’s excursion to the Grand Library’s archives bubbled up.

She remembered vividly how the archivist of the library informed them that the grimoires and tomes in the archives were so powerful that they had to be arranged in a way to cancel each other’s magic, and a single misplaced tome could see its words come to life.

She swallowed hard, curiosity pushing her further, this was just a dream world afterall, she was safe. The mirror’s mysterious aura kept drawing her attention, as if calling for her, yet Arin dared not pick it up. She angled herself so she could look into the mirror without touching it; her reflection looked back at her, but not as she did, it was different, it blinked when she did not.

Arin shuddered and recoiled, bumping into another bookshelf that was behind her. Her reflection laughed teasingly, and then disappeared.

As soon as she bumped into the other bookshelf, the voice rang in her mind once more. It was faint, a distant whisper.

“…two fishermen, Jake and Steve, were casting their nets on the eve of a fierce storm…”

Arin paused for a moment, regaining her focus and composure.

The bookshelf that Arin bumped into shook as if displeased by the fact that it got bumped into. A single book fell from the top of it, landing on the stone floor with an audible thump.

Arin glanced down at the book, it looked familiar somehow. Kneeling to take a closer look, she recognized it now. It is the book from the class, from Kira, though, unlike the grimoire she read in the classroom, this one was already in its final and true form. Its cover shone much the same as in the real world, shifting array of iridescent hues, featuring colors that Arin had never seen before; colors she could only describe as ‘ancient magic’.

She picked it up, and to her surprise the grimoire looked simultaneously covered in dust, and clean.

Before she could so much as reach it with her other hand, the grimoire flipped itself open to an arbitrary page, it was blank at first, and then images and words began to appear. It described a very complicated, and seemingly impossible ritual, a ritual of Ascension to Sorcery.

Arin recalled that sorcerers were essentially demigods. They had an ethereal connection to the fundamentals of magic, and acted as beacons for the magic to enter our world through, as such, they were the sources of magic itself, hence the name – sorcerers.

Her body stiffened as she read on.

The ritual described in essence a power transfer from two witches bound by blood, sisters, to a wizard who had mastered the control of arcana. Sisters among witches were banned by the celestial decree, yet there have been cases when a witch would birth two children. Though those cases are exceptionally rare, even more so than the mythical flower Snow Rose.

“Creepy…” she thought to herself, unconsciously keeping a hold of the book as she glanced around the room for the next thing to examine.

Upon taking a wary step toward the mysterious object, the full-height mirror that stood beside the wardrobe, she heard the faint voice once more.

“We are Urtid…” the distant voice, like an echo of past, long forgotten, whispered to her. The familiarity of the voice sent chills through her body, she knew that voice yet couldn’t remember it. Gritting her teeth she shut her eyes, deciding, thinking.

‘No, please don’t leave! Tell me more of your tales…’ she pleaded, searching desperately for the voice amidst the silence and darkness.

On the outskirts, just beyond her reach, the voice lingers as a shapeless form, a whisp, a faint memory. The voice, barely audible, yet soft and beautiful, continues retelling the tale.

“When a witch of blood, darkness, or nature finds a snow rose…” the voice faded yet again but the phrase sparked a sense of Deja Vu within her.

Arin now found herself lying in bed, a faceless person sat beside her, speaking softly, telling her a story of a legendary witch that had once acquired a mythical flower and with its aid overcame her weaknesses and saved the life of a princess. A story of perseverance and the power of will, a story that is often told to young witches as a means of teaching them what it truly means to be a witch.

She sighed softly, refocusing herself, dismissing the sense of Deja Vu, searching again for the voice, yet not even an echo of it remained.

As she reopened her eyes, the mirror loomed before her. Arin felt a pull toward it as if an invisible thread tugged at her thoughts and body alike to approach it, to reach for it, to look into it. She walked warily toward it, her steps light and slow, hesitant yet unable to resist its pull; she approached it till she was but an arm’s length away.

Her instincts yelped not to stare into the mirror; its ominous presence made it seem like a bad idea.

After a quick glance at the mirror she shuddered, it was like staring into the abyss, and everybody knows what happens if you do.

The darkness of the mirror, or rather, within it seemed to stretch endlessly. A void that tugged at the edges of her mind. Arin felt her body seize up for a moment, like it was restrained by invisible tendrils that restrained her in place. The mirror called for her, luring her, beckoning her to step closer.

Arin felt as if invisible fingers were rummaged through her mind and deepest thoughts in search of her desires. She shook her head in protest, “No, s…stop…”

Feeling her body take a slow, shallow step toward the dark mirror, the tug was no longer just in her mind.

Arin felt as if invisible fingers were rummaging through the deepest corners of her mind in search of something she desperately tried to hide. Wincing when she felt them succeed. When she reopened her eyes she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

A gentle and warm breeze washed over Arin’s body; she was outside amidst a lush flower field, just beyond a door.

On the other side of the wide-open door, stood her mother, she had a flower crown and the warmest smile on the planet.

“Mom?”

Arin queried out of confusion, she wasn’t sure how she ended up here, but she knew this place, it was her old home in the forest.

Her mother smiled, squatting down and spreading her arms, “Come, my dear.”

“Yes mother,” Arin exclaimed happily, tossing aside all and any worries and concerns and leaping through the door into her mother’s warm embrace.

Like a lake in the night, the mirror swallowed her whole. It pulls her into its depths without so much as a sound.

A single ripple reverberated through the mirror’s surface. The ghostly trace of her existence soon perished as the mirror’s surface returned to still and ominous.

The mirror left no trace of her behind, not even a single memory.

– The End –